Saturday, February 21, 2009

Vanilla;

Reading: Vanilla by Tim Ecott; Travels in search of the Luscious Substance.

Most people love Vanilla. Already the word Vanilla evokes an expectation of something beautifully scented and rare. It is used in all sorts of sweets and the taste is sublime when the real Vanilla bean is used. Artificial Vanilla is awful it is to strong and leaves a bad aftertaste. Most manufactured sweets are flavoured with artificial Vanilla. Use in your own kitchen the real Vanilla only. Never ever use artificial Vanilla essence.

Vanilla is also used in perfumes.I have planted Vanilla Orchids. I also have made cuttings which have taken.Unfortunately I have not been diligent enough to look afterthem. When we had a very dry year I lost them all. I try again to find some plants and go from there.

Attempts to cultivate the vanilla plant outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the tlilxochitl vine that produced the vanilla orchid and the local species of Melipona bee;

In 1841, a 12-year-old French-owned slave by the name of Edmond Albius, who lived on Île Bourbon, discovered the plant could be hand pollinated, allowing global cultivation of the plant.[4]There are currently three major cultivars of vanilla grown globally.The majority of the world's vanilla that is produced is the V. planifolia variety, more commonly known as "Madagascar-Bourbon"vanilla, which is produced in a small region of the East African nation of Madagascar and in Indonesia.[7][8]Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron, due the extensive labor required to grow the seed pods used in its manufacture. Despite the expense, it is highly valued for its flavor which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate" and its complex floral aroma depicted as a "peculiar bouquet."[9] Regardless of its high cost, vanilla is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume manufacture and aroma therapy.[9]

HistoryThe first to cultivate vanilla were the Totonac people, who inhabit the Mazantla Valley on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the present-day state of Veracruz. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew.[3]

Madagascar (mostly the fertile region of Sava) accounts for half of the global production of vanilla. Mexico, once the leading producer of natural vanilla with an annual 500 tons, produced only 10 tons of vanilla in 2006. An estimated 95% of “vanilla” products actually contain artificial vanillin, produced from lignin.[12]

The fruit (a seed capsule), if left on the plant, will ripen and open at the end; as it dries, the phenolic compounds crystallize giving the beans a diamond-dusted appearance which the French call givre (hoarfrost). It will then release the distinctive vanilla smell. The fruit contains tiny, flavorless seeds. In dishes prepared with whole natural vanilla, these seeds are recognizable as black specks.Like other orchids' seeds, vanilla seed will not germinate without the presence of certain mycorrhizalfungi. Instead, growers reproduce the plant by cutting: they remove sections of the vine with six or more leaf nodes, a root opposite each leaf. The two lower leaves are removed, and this area is buried in loose soil at the base of a support. The remaining upper roots will cling to the support, and often grow down into the soil. Growth is rapid under good conditions.

Medicinal usesIn old medicinal literature, vanilla is described as an aphrodisiac and a remedy for fevers. It has been shown that vanilla does increase levels of catecholamines (including epinephrine, more commonly known as adrenaline), and as such can also be considered mildly addictive.[32][33]In an in-vitro test vanilla was able to block quorum sensing in bacteria. This is medically interesting because in many bacteria quorum sensing signals function as a switch for virulence. The microbes only become virulent when the signals indicate that they have the numbers to resist the host immune system response.[34]The essential oils of vanilla and vanillin are sometimes used in aromatherapy